Wrestling dropped from 2020 Olympics

Lausanne (Switzerland), Feb 12 (IANS) Wrestling, a sport that brought India medals from the last two Olympics, has been dropped from the 2020 Summer Games.

The decision was made during the International Olympic Committee executive board meeting here Tuesday and wrestling's replacement will be announced in May, The Telegraph reported. The sport, however, is part of the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

The other sports on the hit list - Badminton, taekwondo and modern pentathlon -survived the axe.

Wrestling will now make its bid for Olympic inclusion alongside softball, baseball, squash, karate, sport climbing, wakeboarding, wushu and rollersports at St. Petersburg in May.

The full IOC session will ratify the changes during their meeting Buenos Aires in September.

"It was up to the executive board members to make a decision, it was not black and white and it was not an easy decision, but we wanted to allow room for the renewal of the Olympic programme, said Adams.

As things stand, an emerging sporting nation like India will be hit hard.

Two of India' six medals at the London Olympics came from wrestling, courtesy Yogeshwar Dutt and Sushil Kumar. Sushil also won one of India's three medals at the 2008 Beijing edition. The country's fourth medal was won by Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav in 1952 Helsinki edition.

The 36 sports that IOC reviewed were rated on 39 different criteria including television ratings and ticket sales from the London Games.

It has been only once since the first modern Olympics in 1896 that wrestling has been excluded from the programme -- in the 1900 edition.